Am I out of touch with reality? Is that just the explanation? Oppo just launched a midrange smartphone – with a notch – with a few extra novelty bells and whistles and just casually asks for PHP 40,000 (Est. US$ 750) for it. Slap me in the face right now that is so dumb. You price a smartphone within a stone’s throw of a Samsung S9, LG G7, Huawei P20 Pro, Huawei Mate 20 / Pro, and you dare, you dare to come in that market with a decidedly lackluster midrange spec sheet? I mean damn I knew people loved Oppo phones but I don’t know if they love it THAT MUCH. Is this Apple levels of reality distortion field or maybe I just don’t get the hype. Anyway, have a gander at the new Oppo R17 Pro / Oppo RX17 Pro specs below.

Yeeeeeee-ikes. Ok, to Oppo’s credit there are some interesting features here. Tech-wise, the 3D TOF (Time-of-Flight) camera is bleeding edge tech there, and supposedly in the future Oppo will launch an update to the phone that will introduce an app that can 3D model any object you have – which actually sounds cool though probably wouldn’t be worth much after trying it out for a few times. I mean, they couldn’t even bother to launch the phone with that app itself, so its obvious that feature isn’t even considered a selling point.

What is the main selling point anyway? An in-display fingerprint scanner? We’ve seen those for less than PHP 20k already. AMOLED display with a notch? Lots of phones under 30k do those. Snapdragon 710? Hell we have Snapdragon 845 for less than PHP 20k.

Oh it has a Samsung-copied variable aperture camera. Which is cool but doesn’t guarantee image quality. And the Oppo brand is known for “adjusted” selfies, but not exactly in the running for top DXOMark devices either. So why would you buy one when countless other phones offer better cameras for the same price – and with higher resolution displays, water proofing, headphone jacks, and actual flagship processors?

What is even going on? What is Oppo smoking? Sure, its got that weird purple / blue color in the back – something everybody and their mom is copying from Huawei. In which case, for PHP 40,000, you could buy an actual Huawei.

Did Oppo just jump the shark? Is this the return of the old school extremely overpriced era of their “premium” phones? Or maybe they have something to offer with their PHP 39k package? Whatever you think, let us know cause this is definitely a curiosity.